I think we already have plenty of data to know what works and what doesn't. I just think that a lot of the "experts" really aren't thinking like they should.

The bullet that has the most potential to cause the most damage by breaking through bones, cutting soft tissue, and damaging "movement related vitals" stops the attacker the quickest wins. The faster and heavier a bullet can be driven, the more that can be done with the energy driving that bullet, like, for instance, bullet expansion. The faster a bullet can be driven, the more energy there is to do the actual expanding. But, and expanded bullet is like a parachute... the expansion slows it down. But, if the expansion can be "blades" instead of just a ball shaped mushroom, the energy is going to be used to cut with instead of just push "meat and bone" out of the way or otherwise crush or smash it. A very fast heavy bullet can be designed to not penetrate very far at all... if it is designed to open quickly and open large. And a bullet like that is not as likely to have much damaging potential after it exits. Plus, whatever it hits is going to get hit with a large flat area and with the energy expended, not likely to cause much damage afterward. This is why for a 10mm to be a good bear stopper, it needs to not expand so much so whatever velocity one can get it going out of a handgun with needs to go towards penetrating far enough to get to the vitals. Same goes with a dangerous game rifle and taking a rhino. It's the breaking of the bones and the fragments along with the big long hole that get the job done... in other words, again, the damage to the vitals.

And so, since the Silver tips really don't have any cutting edges and really just amount to a big ball shape being pushed through, they need the velocity and long wound channel. And frankly, there are much better bullets out there now that provide cutting, like Gold Dots, Golden Sabers, and of course "Talons" or whatever Winchester wants to call them to be PC. The trick, though, is holding those sharp petals on to do the cutting, and keeping the fragmenting to a minimum to maintain weight.

If a bullet is just designed to go 12 inches and cut the whole way, then what is going to happen if a BIG guy is encountered that is turned sideways and he has BIG bicepts and other muscles flexed tight? At 12 inches one is lucky to even reach the heart. You got clothes, possibly a leather jacket, hide, all that muscle, fat, the heavy bone, then more muscle and fat, then hide, clothes, leather, clothes, hide, fat, muscle, bone, then muscle, lungs, then the heart. That's a lot to get thru, and when the bullet finally gets there, it's big and flat, so it might just push gently against the heart, and the bad guy is still easily able to blow you away or cut you to shreads.

I want a bullet that is going to punch through, expand, cut that crap out of anything along the way, then knock the CRAP out of the spine and stop the ability of the guy to continue functioning and drop him so he can't attack any longer. A heavy 180+ grain talon or saber type bullet that has a jacket (read; talons/sabers) that is not going to separate from the core is going to do the best at that. And if it does exit, it is probably only going to have enough remaining ooomph to get caught in the clothing. Jacketed lead, solid copper, hey, whatever works. A "Silvertip"? Meh. It has limited potential even if it does exit.

This is why a broadhead works, and a target arrow doesn't. I want talons and sabers! And the velocity and weight to push them. And the whole expanded thing works like a parachute to stop it after the job is done. Simple.

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